After the Probes had gotten the Outpost setup underground, we started looking at the Charter Hills area on the maps.

I had already seen an abandoned building in the area, when I first rolled into the city, it was a 5 story office building. Not idea, too large and too close to the highway. Though the presence of such a building meant there might be more.

"Oh look here," I pointed to a spot on the map. There was an abandoned auto shop, nothing too busy next to it either. That would be a good option.

"Bad sight lines." Wick stated. He gestured at a CHOOH2 station that had gone under recently, he pointed at the fuel storage towers. "Better." The area around it was clear for a hundred yard in any direction. He was right, excellent place to setup defenses.

I did a quick search of CHOOH2 and followed some threads gathering an array of information on it's production.

Which gave me a wicked idea. At the end of the day, all CHOOH 2 was just a burnable grain alcohol or an ethanol. I think the formula was for ethanol was CH3CH2OH or something like that. Sure that wasn't all CHOOH2 was, but not only could we produce a viable ethanol fuel in the forge's assemblers we could refine it into a better version. Hell, we could just copy the existing formula and modify it.

Slinging their own fuel back to them to help pay for our efforts to bring down the Corpos. I liked the sound of that. I could get some bots to run it, and we could modify the whole place to be a fortress.

But the longer I thought about it, the more I was sure it would be the fast track to armed confrontation. Petrochem was one of the big Corps and they had a near monopoly on CHOOH2, sure they licensed the wheat they used to make it from Biotechnica, but that just meant I'd piss them both off with my idea.

Yeah, maybe hold off on that for now.

Still, it was a good property to grab and it was selling for relatively cheap. I went ahead and bought it. What was a few hundred grand in the face of what we stood to gain. Our lumber trade was making big bucks right now.

I nodded at them, "Alright no problem buying that one. Already went through. A drone will be by in fifteen minutes with the key fobs."

Hmm. let's see what else?

I wanted to see the inside of Megabuilding 4 while we were nearby.

I snapped my fingers, "Right." I rang up Misty.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Ryan! Been awhile. We've missed you. You doing alright?" She seemed to be in a good mood.

"Sure, Misty... things are, um, preem. Just wanted to see if Vik had some time later to look over a couple of fellas I'm working with. Get them chipped." Seemed a good time to get Raynor and Mr. Wick fitted.

"Let's see... Vik has an opening in a couple of hours, that good for you?"

"That's great. Thanks Misty. You're the best."

"Misty, huh?" Raynor gave me a suspicious look.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Don't go there, Misty's great and Sally and Megan already know all about it."

I changed my mind about checking out Megabuilding 4 changing my target to Megabuilding 10 since it was on the way to see Vik.

The fellas had left the armor down in the outpost under the protection of the Probe Sentries and a few War Pylons. Kept their rifles on them though. Going unarmed in Night City was a fool's errand. They were wearing the casual dress of New Lordaeron, based off of blue jeans and t shirts, so they weren't too out of place.

Megabuilding 10 was a hustling bustling edifice to the Dystopia Gods. Built to withstand nuclear strikes and to be a completely self contained environment that was to my untrained eyes a gravity defying monstrosity. No, seriously how does all that work. You would think it would crumble under its own weight.

Layer after layer, floor after floor, of concrete and steel. With barely a splash of paint to breakup the monotony, most of which was Gang graffiti. Endless advertisement blaring at you 24/7 from every direction. Driving you slowly but inevitably mad.

And the people. They mostly looked broken and worn down, completely absorbed into an endless nightmare of corporate greed, or they looked jittery, nervous and ready to pull iron at the drop of a hat. Some small few were either more put together, ready to hit a Corpo job, or basically homeless using the quieter corners to squat until someone drove them off. A true spread of the standard Night City citizenry.

It took no time at all for all of the fellas to become disenchanted with the technology of the era, after seeing the conditions forced on the everyday folks. I heard them talking about how the madness of Goblins and Gnomes had surely cursed this land. Something about never leaving things well enough alone.

Huh? Now there's a thought. I had an idea of little greedy green guys and human looking quixotic little folk running around with crazy contraptions getting into all manner of trouble. It made me chuckle. Which I needed after facing with the grim realities of life in this place.

We left the building after looking through a few more stores and stalls. Junk. Most of the goods on offer were just junk. Who needs any of this?

On the way over to Vik's, a few wannabes tried to start a fight, perhaps thinking we were some new rivals for their territory. Ten low level street toughs looking to make a name for themselves. Maybe looking to join a bigger Gang after they had run awhile.

Mr. Wick put rounds into each of their skulls before the rest of us had an idea what he was going to do. That fast. Faster than it took to say, "That's not a good idea, fellas." Which is what I was going to say. You know, before somebody decorated the street with their brains.

We all looked at him.

"Sorry, reflex." He shrugged like it wasn't the most badass thing we'd ever seen. Fucking terrifying.

"We'd better get a move on before NCPD rolls by. Don't want to deal with them if we can help it." I shook my head as I picked up the pace.

"Not that they'd really give a damn." I whispered mostly to myself.